Your price rarely gets killed in the proposal
Your price rarely gets killed in the proposal. It gets killed by the first number you say out loud.
Anchoring bias helps explain why.
That first number becomes the anchor. Once it lands, the rest of the deal starts moving around it.
So when security, support, implementation, or scope push the real price higher, the buyer does not think, “fair.”
They think, “this got more expensive.” Not because it did.
Because you set the wrong anchor at the start.
That is how reps create price problems that were never price problems. You think you are keeping the deal moving.
What you are really doing is dropping an anchor that slows everything down. The longer the deal goes on, the more weight that first number carries.
If you do not set the anchor, the buyer will.
An internal budget. A weak competitor’s number. Something procurement heard months ago.
Either way, the deal starts drifting before the proposal lands. The better move is to anchor on the cost of the problem before the price of the product.
What is the current process costing in delays? What is bad data costing in missed forecast accuracy?
What is slow onboarding costing over 12 months? What is one quarter of inaction costing the team?
Now the buyer is not judging your price against a casual estimate. They are judging it against the cost of staying where they are.
That is a much stronger anchor. When the proposal goes out, break out the gains.
Time saved. Risk reduced.
Manual work removed. Faster rollout. Cleaner reporting.
But present the investment as one decision. One number lands better than five separate charges.
None of this works if the frame is forced.
If the problem is overstated, trust drops. If the anchor feels fake, the buyer ignores it.
A lot of reps think they have a pricing problem.
What they usually have is an anchor problem created early in the deal. So when you put down that first number, is it helping the deal move, or dragging it to a stop?
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